All About Me

I’m JennieRae Paker.  I was born and raised in San Jose, California which some people know better as Silicon Valley and it is located about 1 hour south of San Francisco.  I graduated Santa Teresa High School in 1992 and then moved onto DeAnza College to complete my general education classes.  After DeAnza I went to UC Davis where I majored in History and minored in German.  It was there that I decided I wanted to travel.  I found a work exchange program so for the summer of 1996 I spent my first of many summers away.  That summer I lived and worked at Hansa Park in the very north of Germany.  It was such a great experience and I got to see a lot of Europe.  After I graduated in 1997, I decided I wanted to do it again although this time I wanted a proper city so I choose Berlin.   That was an amazing summer!  Since I had graduated, I didn’t even bother having a return flight.  I was going to try to stay as long as possible.  I was working at a bakery and I would travel and sightsee on my days off.  Through the program, I had a work visa for three months.  When it expired, I halfheartedly tried to renew it, but I kept getting the run around so I decided to travel.  I got a cash advance from my parent’s credit card (thanks again Daddy!) and spent two months traveling around western Europe.  It was all over from there.  I learned that I love to travel and that traveling alone was totally fine.  Since then I’ve done a total of thirteen trips to Europe, one trip to South America (Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, & Chile), two trips to Asia (Vietnam & China), one trip to the Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, & Israel), two trips to Kenya, and one trip to Central America (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, & Cuba).

When I’m not traveling I teach special education at the middle school level.  I’ve been doing it for 14 years and I love it.  It’s a challenge which is probably why I like it.  It’s something new everyday.  I also enjoy having the summers off.  While we get a lot of vacation time as teachers we don’t get to choose when we get it.  I’ve always wanted to be able to travel during our winter so that I could see places in the southern hemisphere during their summer.  Because of this, I’ve decided that it was time to take a year off and travel the world.  It’s something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while, and I just feel like this is the time.  So here’s my blog about my adventure which I’m calling “The Incredible Journey.”  Please enjoys my posts and pictures and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.  I love to hear from people!